The present invention relates to an improved monorail passenger and light freight system, including a vehicle and improved rail for such a system.
Railed-vehicle systems, such as monorails, have numerous benefits, particularly in overcrowded urban environments where the surface streets are congested with traffic, and traditional forms of mass transportation, such as buses, must compete for space with existing traffic. For example, a dedicated elevated guide way vehicle system operates above city streets and therefore is immune from traffic congestion. It provides a quick and convenient way for moving people around a city, and it actually helps to relieve traffic congestion.
However, existing elevated railed-vehicle systems have several characteristics that have precluded their wide acceptance throughout the world. First, known support structures used to elevate the guide way are heavy and excessively large making them expensive to construct and install. Such structures are difficult to prefabricate at a central manufacturing facility and then transport easily to the location where they will ultimately be installed. Accordingly, the support structures must be individually manufactured directly on the site where they will be used. This time and expense of manufacturing such structures is a primary contributor to the excessive costs of elevated rail systems. In addition, variations in weather, temperature, and environment at each individual support structure manufacturing site combined with variations associated with continuously having to move and set-up the manufacturing equipment at each site make it difficult to efficiently control the quality and consistency of each manufactured support structure.
Moreover, known guide rails and running paths are prone to accumulate snow and ice, which may adversely affect vehicle operation. Similarly, known bogie, vehicle frames, guide rails, and rail switching devices are complex and expensive to construct.
Thus, there remains a need for railed-vehicle systems that can be consistently and economically prefabricated off-site and easily moved to the installation site, that provide improved stabilizer rail and bogie designs, that provide improved switching devices, and that provide improved construction shapes, designs and materials for use in rail, vehicle, and vehicle components.
Fulfilling the forgoing needs is the primary objective of the invention.
The invention also includes a monorail system having one or more of the following improvements:
1. a monorail transportation system for passengers and light freight that is light and economical and enables free form construction at low cost;
2. a monorail system with a low profile stabilizer guide rail that communicates with vehicles with independent bogies that have electro-mechanical propulsion and suspension systems, magnetic levitation systems, or linear electrical motor systems for propelling the vehicles;
3. a monorail system with at least one longitudinal conductor mounted on and running parallel to the stabilizer guide rail and at least one electric cable received within and extending though the stabilizer guide rail to the longitudinal conductor;
4. a monorail system that provides a means for receiving, within a vehicle in a monorail system, electrical information through a conductor.
5. a monorail system having heated guide and/or stabilizer rails;
6. a monorail system having improved running path, guide rail and bogie designs to facilitate operation and construction of these systems;
7. a monorail system having alternative drive wheel configurations;
8. a monorail system having improved hardware and materials;
9. a monorail system having improved safety features; and
10. a monorail system having improved switching devices for switching between two or more guide ways.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an improved monorail system with an essentially planar top surface that includes (a) a means for support having an essentially planar top surface; (b) a longitudinal stabilizer guide rail with a vertical web supporting a head forming two stabilizer guide tracks that is mounted parallel to and on top of the planar top surface and dividing the planar top surface into two parallel vehicle running paths; (c) at least one propelled vehicle having a vehicle body and at least two independent bogies in communication with the vehicle running paths and the stabilizer guide rail and the bogies being able to rotate independently about a pivot point between the vehicle body and the bogies; and (d) at least one longitudinal conductor mounted on and running parallel to the stabilizer guide rail and one electric cable received within and extending through the stabilizer guide rail to the longitudinal conductor.
Improved vehicle, bogie, rail, and support structures and designs are also disclosed.